Mental Health
by Blue Zombie
Summary: Ashley's experience of Craig's first day back at school after his bipolar diagnosis.


"Ashley," I could tell by my mother's tone of voice that she was about to say something that she wasn't sure I wanted to hear. It was breakfast on a Saturday and I had buttered toast in front of me and a coffee, despite my mother frowning at me about it. She said I was too young to drink coffee. She didn't know that I felt like a 40 year old, all weary and worn out, especially after this past week.

"I'm not sure you should be seeing so much of Craig," she said, her back to me. That was a weird way to put it. So much? So I could see him, just not a lot? Well, I hadn't been seeing him a lot. I went to see him in the hospital once, and that was because Joey asked me to. But the teenage little shit in me felt compelled to argue, to push for my view point, although I wasn't so sure what that viewpoint was.

"Mom, I love him," I said, but did I? I thought I had loved him, but now? He was different now. Could I love this new person in the same way?

"I know, Ashley," mom said, turning toward me, her hands still damp from rinsing some dishes, and she looked kind of weary and worn out, too.

"Just be careful," she said, and I looked down at the butter melting into my toast, and I knew she was just worried about me. I was a little worried, too.

As I got nearer to the school, sitting comfortably in the back of Paige's brother's van, I got more nervous. Craig would be back in school today. That meant all day of him. I'd see him before homeroom, in the classes we shared, at lunch, after school. Before my dad's wedding, before, this had been kind of wonderful. Natural. Now I couldn't imagine seeing so much of him. When I visited him in the hospital I stayed for maybe 45 minutes, maybe an hour.

"Hi," I was out of the van for maybe a second when Ellie came up to me. I looked at her black clothes and red hair, all contrasts in the sun. I noticed her chipping black nail polish as she clutched her books to her chest like they were armor that could protect her.

"Hey," I said, smiling. I was glad that the first person I ran into wasn't Craig. I scanned the front of the school for him, my eyes zoning in on the brick wall by the front stairs. That was where he tended to go.

"He isn't here," Ellie said, watching my eyes, reading my mind. I let out my pent up breath and laughed. It was just Craig, my boyfriend, not someone to be afraid of. But the truth was I was afraid. I felt like I couldn't trust him, I didn't know what he would do.

As I gazed out across the parking lot and the front of the school I saw Joey's red convertible drive up. I saw Joey's bald head gleaming in the morning sun and I saw Craig's shaggy hair, that non-descript brown, his head down. He wore his denim jacket, and I saw the strap of his book bag slung over his shoulder. I saw Joey talk to him, put his hand lightly on his shoulder. From this distance I could see the tenseness in Craig's shoulders. He got out of the car slowly and didn't look around. He just walked to the building, head down, and I felt a tug of affection for him. It was all mixed in with sympathy.

"Go find him, talk to him," Ellie said, looking at me through her heavily made-up eyes. She wore this charcoal color and black eye-liner. Her face was naturally pale with light freckles across her nose, and she wore dark purple lipstick. Freak. But I loved her. And she was right. Craig needed me. I felt the weight of that need as I strode across the parking lot toward the front stairs.

I found him at his locker, slowly putting away his books. I stared at him in the slant of sun, stared at him in this moment before he knew I was there. He seemed so still now, all that pent up nervous energy from the weeks before burned away. Maybe it was the medication that made him seem like this calmer version of himself.

"Hi," I said, walking over to him. He looked up and for a second there was no expression, just a blank stare. Then he smiled, and I got the feeling the smile was for my benefit. It was that blankness this morning, that was the real face.

"Hi, Ash," he said, and he looked scared, too. I felt that sympathy mixed in with love again, the two emotions kind of swirling together, all little particles of each until you couldn't tell them apart.

I tried to think of what we had done before, before he stayed up for days writing all those songs, before he stole Joey's credit card and charged thousands of dollars for clothes and hotel rooms, before he got down on his knees at my father's rehearsal dinner and asked me to marry him.

"How's it going?" I said, at such a loss. I felt like I was talking to a stranger. This was my boyfriend, I reminded myself. Mentally ill. Abused. Abandoned. An orphan. He was so screwed up. I felt my own pink and glowing mental health in stark contrast to his.

"Okay," No more rambling on and on. In the past weeks he wouldn't shut up, about anything, and I'd had trouble following his train of thought. He'd jump from one topic to the next, making connections I couldn't fathom. This, this quiet subdued speech, it was so different.

I swallowed hard, and I could hear it in the quiet hall. It seemed it was just us here. The morning sun streamed in the big glass windows and made the wax on the hallway floor glow.

The bell rang, freeing us, and we took off for our separate homerooms. I held his hand for a second before we parted, feeling his fingers against mine.

"How'd it go?" Ellie said. She sat behind me in homeroom. I pressed my lips together and thought about how it went. I had no idea.

"Good," I said, thinking about how much of what I said to people was lies, or just words in the place of truths I didn't know. Did it go good? I didn't think so. I didn't know what to say to him, I didn't know what he needed from me, what he needed me to be. I wanted to be these things for him. I wanted to restore his sense of himself, because I knew it had taken a beating. I saw him hitting Joey, that rage in his eyes, and I could only guess at what was going on in his head. Was it some kind of delayed reaction from the abuse by his father? Was it just violence because he was bipolar? Was he just not in control of himself? Was he in control now?

Ellie looked at me, not really believing me because she shouldn't. I had two classes before I'd see him in media immersion. Two classes to breathe.

My first class was English with Hazel and Paige.

"Craig's back," Paige said to me, twisting around in her seat. I nodded. We all knew, everyone knew that he lost it, that he'd been in the hospital. Everyone had seen his off the wall behavior. Paige had seen him get in a fight with some grade ten over something stupid, Marco had gone shopping with him, listening to the non-stop babble. I don't know what Hazel had seen. Her head was down, and she was reading, or pretending to. She was still too wrapped up in Jimmy to notice anybody else's drama.

"Yep," I said, hoping that would be the end of it. With Paige, not likely.

"So, how is he?" she pressed, leaning toward me. What should I say?

"I have no idea,"

If I thought his first day back was rough for me, I should stop and consider for one second how it was for him. He was the one under scrutiny. He was the one dealing with the teachers and their different, yet equally annoying reactions. Some teachers were overly supportive, talking to him quietly after class, lending support. Some were trying to ignore it, mostly the science teachers uncomfortable with emotions, more comfortable in the world of lab slides and test results. And of course Joey. I knew Joey's brand of over the top parenting. Joey tended to beat issues to death. Talk and talk and talk. Sometimes you didn't want to talk. Sometimes there was nothing to say.

I headed bravely toward media immersion, determined to be normal, and not to be so weird. It was just Craig, after all. Funny, smart, creative, thoughtful Craig. He was still all of those things. I had to remember that.

Maybe worst of all for Craig was going to be this class. Simpson, being Joey's friend, knew more than most of the teachers. There were no secrets here. When I got there he wasn't there. Almost everybody else was, but not him. I could feel my anxiety rising like the mercury in those old thermometers.

Simpson glanced at the door as the time to start drew near, and I knew he was wondering the same thing I was. Where was he? I licked my lips and tapped my nails on my desk and tried to remember when things were simple.

He showed up, looking somehow vulnerable in that jean jacket, his hair gelled into bangs and straightness. I knew the natural wild curliness of his hair, like after we'd go swimming and it would dry into Victorian curls around his face. Everything was under control today. But he was just late enough to be late.

"Craig?" Simpson said, perhaps not wanting to accuse him of lateness on his first day back. I remembered that time he had been talking non-stop in one of Simpson's study halls and how he had snapped at Simpson and then walked out.

"Yeah. Here," Craig said, handing him a folded paper. I recognized it as a note from the nurse's office. Meds. He had to go and get his meds. Simpson glanced at the note and nodded.

He came and sat next to me, not looking at me for a second, and then he did, a slight smile on his face. I smiled back, and it felt too wide and too fake, stretched across my features like some mannequin's smile.

I was in the bathroom with Ellie before lunch, and I could feel my veneer cracking.

"I can't take it," I told her, and I could hear the agony in my voice.

"What? What's wrong?" she said, putting her black nailed hand on my shoulder. I wanted to cry.

"Craig. I don't know. It's like, I feel fake, I feel like he's fake, we're being all careful, and I wish we didn't have to be, but I don't know how else we can be," I felt a sob wanting to rise up, and I wished I was in my bedroom, the dim lamp on and some song on, singing out my pain. I could hug my pillow and cry there. Here I had to be a big girl.

"It's just his first day back. Give yourselves some time," she said. It seemed reasonable. I just didn't know how to do that.

Lunch really showed his misery. It was easier to hide it in class, where you could sit and pretend to listen to the teacher prattle on about whatever, but at lunch, that escape was stripped away. He had a tray of food in front of him but he was hardly touching it. I was watching him not eat. He wasn't looking up or talking. He just looked down at that tray of food and pushed some of it around sometimes. I took a small deep breath and didn't know what to say. I knew what was wrong. I knew why he wasn't talking and why he wasn't eating. I didn't want to badger him about it. I didn't have it in me to distract him with small talk. I sipped my milk carton with the straw sticking out of it and wished for someone to come and save us, someone who could draw us out of ourselves. We needed help. We couldn't help ourselves. I felt lost, lost. How must he feel?

I saw Ellie then in the lunch line, selecting an apple from a tray of fruit. I waved at her and with my eyes I said, "come over here," She nodded, looking at Craig's bowed head.

She set her tray down at our table, making Craig look up. He had these dark circles under his eyes. I did, too.

"Hi, guys," she said, upbeat. As upbeat as Ellie got. I felt as thankful as a child that she was here. I felt the pressure slip off my shoulders for the first time today. Ellie could take the ball for while.

She talked about things, movies and Marco and her mom, all in this kind of not so serious, not so joking middle tone, and for a minute or two I could see that it took Craig's mind off of himself. I saw his genuine smile for the first time that day, and it was because of Ellie. But it didn't spark any kind of jealousy in me. No. I felt just a tired relief and a gratefulness that she could do what I couldn't.

Back in the bathroom after lunch. Ellie obsessively scrubbed her hands, her OCD tendencies strong today. I could see the faint scratch marks on her arms from her cutting days. Ellie was screwed up, too. Alcoholic abusive mom, missing dad.

"Thanks," I said, leaning on the heater, filing a chipped nail. My nails had a pale pink polish on them. I wasn't so goth anymore.

"No problem," she said, grabbing a handful of paper towels and scrubbing her scrubbed hands dry.

"You know, though," she said, and I could see the thought process playing out over her face, "Craig should go to my group,"

"Your group?" I knew something about this group. She went once or twice a week, talking about screwed up things. Maybe Craig should go. I mean, maybe it had helped Ellie. Maybe it could help him, too.

"Yeah. Suggest it to him. I think it might help,"

Alone again, me and Craig. This time we stood at my locker. I could smell that smell I associated with him, that faint cologne, the dryer sheets Joey used, some sort of lavender. I liked his hair straightened, spiky bangs hanging in front of his eyes. I liked how soft and vulnerable he looked in the jean jacket. I liked how his jeans were raggy and frayed at the bottom because they dragged on the ground.

I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. I didn't know how to suggest Ellie's group to him. I thought it might help but I didn't want him to think that I thought he needed help.

"I love you," I said, and I wondered about the truth of that. Did I love him? I had loved him, that was true. But what about now? But I knew I wasn't ready to admit anything, or to stop declaring that. Maybe he wouldn't be able to tell. But then again, I didn't know. His eyes widened in surprise, and a kind of guarded relief flooded into them.

"I love you, too," he said, and maybe he was just echoing it back to me.

I saw Dylan in his van as it idled by the curb. I headed over and said a quick hi, and beyond Dylan I saw Marco's smiling face in the passenger seat. I got in, and from my vantage point behind the tinted van window I saw Craig waiting for Joey, alone. His expression was the blank one I had seen earlier this morning. We were waiting for Paige, and that could be a long wait. I watched Craig, relieved that he couldn't see me. He was still, and stood waiting. I watched the wind flip the edges of his hair, the collar of his jacket. I saw Joey drive smoothly up to the curb and Craig headed over, and I saw Joey talk to him. Craig just shook his head, didn't answer.

I was so tired. Exhausted. I felt like I was holding these invisible weights all day. I didn't know how I could do this again tomorrow.


End file.
